Staff Profile: Barrie Scrymgeour

After graduating from the University of Birmingham, Barrie’s teaching career has been mainly based around the second city of England. The three English primary schools that he worked in were mixed in their setting but all shared a high standard of education. Barrie has taught from Year 1 to 6 and held various positions of responsibility. His last role in a UK primary school was as Deputy Head and he was responsible for assessment and professional development. He also worked in a Local Education Authority as a Teaching and Learning Consultant where he worked intensively with schools on Behaviour, Attendance and Wellbeing. This role meant he was also able to work with government, teaching organisations and universities on curriculum design and best practice.

Having worked in a variety of schools, Barrie chose to move internationally in 2012 to further enhance his teaching experience. NAIS Pudong is his first international school and he has enjoyed it hugely since joining. The school gives him an opportunity to use all his experience to lead it forward, but at the same time challenges him to keep learning about how to teach children from all over our ever changing world.

Before coming to Shanghai, Barrie’s main interest outside of school was rugby and he spent all of his free time playing, training and recovering from the injuries sustained doing both. A change of country has given him an excuse to retire from rugby and spend time enjoying being in Shanghai with his wife and also travelling around Asia. Since coming to China Barrie and his wife, Sally, have welcomed twin boys into the world and so now Barrie spends his free time being a dad, which he absolutely loves.